Hubert J. Farnsworth said:
He claims in that mess of words that A&M was founded by Matthew Gaines.
I thought you surely couldn't be correct, but doing a word search...
Quote:
While some point to this as proof that Sully founded Texas A&M, it is Matthew Gaines' efforts in securing, as a recently freed man and black Senator, the Morill Act in 1862 that gave us both A&M and Prairie View A&M...
To clear up a misconception, Prairie View A&M and TAMU were not founded by General Ross. The school was founded by Matthew Gaines and presided over initially by Thomas S. Gathright and L.W. Minor. TAMU itself was presided over by 6 other leaders before Ross.
Gaines was one of 21 or so votes in favor accepting the Morill Act funds. There is zero documentation of him having anything to do with writing or advocating for legislation regarding the Act or Texas A&M.
And I don't know who has the misconception that Ross founded A&M. Even the dimmest bulb can Google up that he didn't show up until the College was 14 years old.
As for Gaines "founding A&M", by the time classes opened, Gaines had been out of the Senate 2 years, had been out of the Republican Party for 5 years, and convicted (unfairly, in my view) of bigamy. Minor was simply the head teacher at Prairie View.
Hard for him to be founding A&M, when he was preaching to his flock in the next county over.